In The Clearing
by mamdi
Summary: Our lovers, Bella and Edward, have been separated from one another and Edward writes desperately to Bella as he tries to find his way back to her. He has complete faith in her, in them, but does he really understand what's happened? AH, E&B, mature
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: Any Twilight characters that may appear in this story belong to Stephenie Meyer. The remainder is my original work. No reproduction is allowed without my written consent.

A/N – This is my first go at publishing fan fiction. It strays a bit from convention and will be on the angsty side, but you have to trust me that I am devoted to Edward and Bella. While I can't promise you any particular ending, I can promise you that if you have faith in them, it will be rewarded.

In The Clearing – Chapter 1

_When moths whiten the windowpane after dusk, it's time to uncork a bottle and call home the solitary pioneers we became in the woods. We got drunk on avalanche lilies at midday and forgot each other, each of us turning away to the trees. I barely remember the forest's distraction, but as I draw the latch on the screen door for the evening, I feel the itch of pine needles pressed into the arch of my foot. Bats begin to make frantic passes beneath the porch canopy as we, too, fly blindly and faithfully toward the light. You swat mosquitos from the lamp while I construct a tower of twigs and logs to ignite. We pull the corners of the room around us and fly toward each other for warmth. _

January 16, 2010

Dear Bella,

I am hallucinating. I know this, and yet the knowledge hasn't deadened the buzz of insects on the bare bulb, or the heat now growing on the hearth. I've been here before; so many times, in fact, that I no longer require physical conveyance to bring me. I imagine the plane, climbing out of the South, away from the California sun, with me its eager passenger bent toward the fog that rises from the hills around Forks. I smell the bus choking with fumes in the garage at Stewart Street, and then cleansed on the road west from Seattle toward Port Angeles. And I'm the driver of that car bearing down assuredly on each corner of the ascent to my family's mountain cabin outside of Olympic Park. I'm always on that road, at night, scanning the forest for two white eyes of a deer who might suddenly run at me and stare, more frightened by me than my car. I swear the deer know me when they look beyond the headlights. And I'm lying again on a mossy slope with my stomach to the mountain asking what it is I find each time I return.

They tell me I need rest. They tell me I'll recover. Worst of all, they tell me I'll learn to live without you. In secret, I write to you. My words spread out like fingers of the hand you held underwater, when we swam by each other's sides as children. I compose letters about our past and conjure our future at the same time that I nod at their advice. I try to sleep, but the narrow mattress sways under me in the night. To steady myself, I grip the metal bed frame and make promises to any imaginary ear who will listen that I'll find you on the mountain this summer.

Together we'll study the progress of paintbrush in June and wild blueberries in August. I'll finally cast out the shadows that crept over my mother's face when I told her about you. I wanted so badly for my parents to embrace us, for Esme and Carlisle to be glad for the lovers we've become. I wanted it so badly that I let them deceive me. And now they've taken you from me. I only hope you can forgive me when I find my way back to you.

Last week I tried to explain to Esme how you and I met. She was confused and insisted we'd known each other from infancy, and that you'd become her daughter. My sister.

"No," I said. "I met the woman I know later, as an adult."

It had been two years since you'd left for college. I hadn't seen you since the day you drove off in your battered Chevy truck and in your absence I had discovered loneliness for the first time in my life. Then one late morning in August you let yourself into the family cabin on the mountain outside of Olympic Park, and charged into my bedroom unannounced, as if you had never left. You were visiting from your new home in California and you wrapped your slender arms around me as we sat at the edge of the bed. You were still a bully. The same bully who had coaxed me past my own fears as a child. I felt drunk on your scent, so sweet I thought I could taste vanilla in the air around you.

My mother didn't want to hear this, but I persisted. "Bella's smell was intoxicating," I told her. I asked Esme if you had smelled of pine as a child. She couldn't answer me. She looked past me through the small window in my hospital room. I smelled the snow behind me and wondered if I had moved her at all.

"Bella was so confident," I said.

It's true, you were. Your back stood perfectly straight as you strode through the woods on the Cullen property, pointing out mushrooms and molds in the hollow of fallen branches. And in the evening you ordered me around the kitchen, fed every manner of vegetable to my hungry knife while you exhumed pots and pans from under the sink. You cooked with spices that had been forgotten behind cereal in the cupboard. "Mom," I said, "I love your cooking, but that night Bella made me a meal like none I've ever had."

And you told me about California, about the Sierra Nevada peaks that dwarf our Mount Olympus, and redwoods that loom taller than our hemlock and even our giant sitka spruce. I didn't know I was in love that day, but soon there was no other word for what I felt.

Esme began to cry. If I'm tempted to betray you ever, it's when my mother cries. I know I should stiffen and tell her it's only fear, and not sadness, wringing her tears. But I get nauseous when her mouth curls down and her eyes fade beneath the sodden tide. I have never felt ashamed to love you, not even in the presence of Esme's glowering pain. But I have felt sorry. This time I wasn't sorry. I was angry, and confused. Hasn't she won? She lured me from our home in California with promises of reconciliation. I believed she was sincere.

I was mistaken.

Esme visits me every day, watches me for hours; she holds me, and chokes out comfortless sympathy. She is convinced that she can talk me out of loving you. She speaks of healing, but hopes to cure. And she's enlisted an army of doctors to help her.

Perhaps not an army. I barely recognize them behind the unity of their solemn gaze, so it's possible they are merely a few. I know there is a woman among them, and she comes most often. She hopes I'll find her sympathetic. And I might, were she not mired in misguided pity. You would understand. You would recognize her expression as the one that met us on the faces of our oldest friends the night I publicly threaded a finger through your soft, brown hair. I promised you their worry would dissipate in the glow of what we felt. I promised that all of them – Alice, Jasper, Rose, Emmett - would eventually understand that we'd outgrown our sibling-like attachment. You trusted me; you cooked; they ate; and I was right.

This solemnity, this pity, and my mother's sorrow; they would suffocate if we could master the air together. If you were with me, Bella, we would season the air. You would sweeten the salt for them as you have for me, with coconuts and milk. It's corny, you'll say, to be writing to you this way.

Your faithful,

Edward

January 17, 2010

My beautiful Bella,

Another night in this sterile room. Another night spent bargaining with sleep to allow me a moment in the clearing with you. I am now the moth knocking at the windowpane, the bat skimming low ceilings and dropping pine needles at the edge of the forest with an urgent flap of the wing. Like these animals, strained by instinct to memory of smell and touch and sight. Half asleep, painfully conscious, with cold metal in the hand, I find you in a clearing, surrounded by ghastly evergreens and rooted there yourself like the forest's emissary. I arrive on shaky legs, thistles in my socks and one in my hair. You pass one calming hand over my cheek and trace my bottom lip with your thumb on the way to remove the thistle.

In this dream, this fantasy of mine, we don't speak. You have understood everything, and waited. The simple gesture of touch, your hand at my jaw, and the smell of you sprouting from the mulch. This is the magic the mind creates. I don't need to hear you tell me, "I've been waiting, Edward. I knew you'd come."

I don't need to say, "I'm sorry. Forgive me."

I don't have to explain that I was committed against my will, or that I tried to call. You've already forgiven Esme for the lies she asked me to believe about you. There, in the forest of our youth, you've managed to grow into the woman who loves me enough to forgive. Who loves me enough to confront Esme and Carlisle's judgment about the choice we made.

Am I crazy for wishing to find you bolder and stronger, when I should be thankful to find you at all? I know I have no right. But these are all fantasies. I am hallucinating.

You are somehow unharmed by the thistle, and now your fingers spread into my hair and slide around the back of my head. You scratch my scalp with your nails sending a shiver between my shoulder blades and down my back. I lean into your neck and bury my nose behind your ear to get closer to your scent. I would crawl under your flawless, milky skin if I could. I can never be close enough to you. My mouth finds yours, hungry for the press of your full lips into mine. The taste of you is always better than even the promise of it. You are the only woman whose reality exceeds all my fantasies. You are the only one.

You feel what you do to me in the weight of my erection against your hip and rub your hand over my cock through the denim while your tongue skims my bottom lip. I am torn between the need to feel your lips moving with mine, to taste your hot, wet tongue with mine, and the desire to step back and look at you. You are so beautiful.

I tip my head back just long enough to see you glowing in the grey-green light of the clearing, as though there were a halo around the cascade of your hair to match your luminous skin. I am drawn back to your pink lips and slide my hands along your torso, brushing the swell of your breasts through the cotton of your t-shirt with the pad of my thumbs, dragging my fingers over your ribs, circling your waist for a moment on the way down to cup your fine ass with both of my hands. Your mouth opens gently as my lips press into yours and our tongues find each other in the heat of our connection. This is where we meet. Warm and open to each other.

This is my fantasy, so I get to have you in every way I want. I don't need to rush. There is less urgency and I have greater control in my imagination. Instead of the desperate pace that overtakes us sometimes, I move in slow motion. I drop to my knees in a bed of pine needles and press my cheek against your stomach as I wrap my arms around your slender waist. I hold you immeasurably long. I feel the rise and fall of your breath in your abdomen and know there is a desire blooming there to match the longing that stretches from my now strained erection into my limbs.

I pull back and lock into your articulate stare before I unbutton and unzip your jeans. You sink your teeth into your bottom lip and your gaze tells me how wet I will find you. I slide your jeans over your hips, down your thighs, and to your ankles, above your bare feet, and hold tight for you to step out of them before I toss them aside. Even on my knees, I have to bend to nudge my nose into the heat of your sex. You are wet through your silk panties and I rub my nose where I know you are most sensitive, gently enough so that your knees tremble and you have to grip my shoulders to keep your balance. You let out an agonized groan from the back of your throat and I know you're throbbing now. You're desperate, and patient only because I'm dreaming.

With my nose still buried in you, I grasp your panties with one hand while I push under the hem of our shirt with the other, splaying my fingers across your stomach. In one quick tug I shred the flimsy silk from your body and press down with the hand on your stomach toward the top of your sex, just over your pubic bone.

"Oh, god, Edward," you moan and thrust your hips forward so that my nose and my tongue are now buried in you. I lick from the bottom up, spreading you open with my tongue and give a little nip to your clit, still pressing with my hand so that you are at the mercy of my mouth and my long fingers. The taste of you makes me rabid with want, but the fantasy me holds onto control I rarely have in real life.

I wrap the arm of my free hand around your leg at the knee and jerk your legs wider apart causing you to fall forward, more of your weight on my shoulders and another loud groan escaping your lips. "Oh, fuck, Edward…"

"Hold on, baby," I whisper into your sex before I press my tongue hard to your clit and begin to circle it, first slowly, and then faster so that your hips are now gyrating to the rhythm I've set. I press down harder on the mound above your clit while my other hand travels from the outside of your knee, along the inside of your thigh, and then my palm has cupped your sex from below and holds you while I continue to circle and nip you.

"Edward, please… oh, fuck, please…."

I torture you for a moment longer and finally slide my middle finger inside you, thrusting in and out before pushing my index finger in alongside it. I curl both fingers up inside you to press on the spot that sends your hips in full flex, so hard that I have to open my mouth around you to take you in. You are hot, wet, silk on the inside and I am the luckiest bastard on Earth.

You let out an incoherent scream as most of your weight is now pressing down around your sex. I'm holding you up with the hand inside you, the mouth around you and you're writhing and trembling over me. You taste divine and I want you to come but don't want to take my tongue off of you.

"Shit, Edward, I can't…" Your whole body is shaking now and I know you're close. I start to slow the circles of my tongue around your clit so that your body climbs to an aching climax. I can feel your legs start to close around me. Your knees are in danger of buckling, but I hold you up with my mouth and my hand and I use my elbow and the position of my body to keep your legs apart.

"Fuck, Edward!" you yell as you start to come and try to pull away. But I don't let you go. I press my tongue harder into your clit, press harder with my fingers on the inside right where I know you like it, and harder with my hand down above your clit so that you're trapped in your orgasm and shaking around me so violently I think you might shake apart. The fingers of your hands dig deep into my shoulders and you fall on me so that I'm bearing all of your weight.

"Edward… Edward," you cry as you ride what seem like endless waves of your orgasm. I can feel wet seeping from my cock. I am close to coming just from the sound of you, the taste of you, the clench of your muscles around my fingers. You drip wet over my hand and in my mouth and I want to hold you there forever.

Finally, you still. Your breath is fast and you gasp before you can take a few deep inhales. I've stilled my movements but haven't removed any of the pressure from the apex of your thighs.

You are nearly crying, "Edward, please…."

I know what you want, and so I give you one last lick to send another shudder through your body before removing my mouth. I drag my fingers out of you and rub them over your clit before I slide my wet hand over your hip and around your waist. I move my other hand to the opposite side of your waist and push you down to your knees so that I'm now looking down into those fathomless brown eyes.

You wrap your arms around my chest and lay your cheek on my shoulder, nuzzling into my neck, with a quiet sob, your body still shivering slightly.

"Hold me for a second," you whisper. And because this is a dream, I can hold you tight and press my erection into your hip and not fall apart myself. I have complete control.

"I love you," you sigh into my ear. "Show me how you love me, Edward."

You let go of the tight embrace enough to allow me to lay you down beneath me. I quickly grab the hem of my shirt and lift it over my head, and then unbutton and unzip my own jeans while you watch me. While I pull my jeans off from my kneeling position, somehow without struggle, you lift your own t-shirt over your head and toss it into the heap of clothes we've created. You arch your back slightly and reach behind you to unclasp your bra and I watch and wait while you slide it off your shoulders, revealing the velvet skin of your breasts and the teasing pink of your nipples. Your nipples are hard in the cool air of the forest, and from your arousal. I reach down with one hand and rub a single finger over one of your nipples, teasing while I watch you wriggle again and raise your hips slightly toward me. You smile and lick your bottom lip. Even in this fantasy, your body is losing patience.

This fantasy. It is a fantasy.

Your slave,

Edward


	2. Chapter 2

Disclaimer: Any Twilight characters that may appear in this story belong to Stephenie Meyer. The remainder is my original work. No reproduction is allowed without my written consent.

In The Clearing - Chapter 2

January 18, 2010

Precious Bella,

Light cycles, and with the coming of the light goes my desire to cling to the unreal. When Winter's stone sun crests at the hospital sill, I retreat from the fantasy and begin to fill the space with words and concrete. I create columns and count the things I know. Date, time, distance. The number of days I've been in this hospital; days that have lapsed since I was intended to return home to you. The number of days since we last spoke. Is it possible that I've begun to lose track? No, it hasn't been so long. There are signposts, still some tangible events to moor me to what's real.

First, there was Christmas.

No, first we parted at the airport gate, your car keys jingling in your hand as you embraced me quickly. Then came Christmas with my family. On Christmas Eve, Esme stuffed a salmon with chives and dill. I stood in the kitchen with her and talked in concentric circles around my life with you. Politics; the weather; California; San Francisco; San Francisco's weather; work; and, as I approached the subject of home I studied her face for the sign of a plea to stop.

I listened, expecting Esme to unwind the conversation, trace the circles back to the remote and safe. But she did not. So, I stepped gingerly onto the rim of the smallest circle and coughed as if to warn her that this was her last chance. At the center of the last circle was you and me, living together not as her son and the girl she raised as a daughter, but as lovers, in a home, in a city, far from the green woods where she tended our childhood.

I had come home precisely to have this conversation with both Esme and Carlisle. And yet, I would not have pressed it upon her at that moment had she not invited me with silence and the comfort of her kitchen. I said your name; I mentioned your garden and asked her advice about the withering ivy plant in our living room. Her hands were busy kneading olive oil into the fish's flesh, and she answered me as if I had asked her the time. There was no warmth in her voice, nor was there the disapproval I had grown accustomed to hearing at the back of her throat. And shortly, it was over. She tread hastily, rather sternly, into our living room and then walked casually back into her own kitchen. The salmon was ready to broil and I ought to set the table. Ask your father to choose a bottle of wine from the cellar.

What had I expected? Nothing more. Had I walked out the door at that moment I would have come home satisfied that something had begun. Our conversation was begun, to be continued when a mother's lasting desperation to love her son, her children, drove her back to it. I am convinced of this.

But I didn't leave. I sat down to dinner with my family. Alice was there with Jasper, and Carlisle and Esme dropped hints about their desire to see a grandchild soon. Work had kept Emmett and Rose in San Francisco this year, so they were spared. No one asked me when you and I planned to start a family. Carlisle asked how my rotation at the hospital was going. Alice asked if you were writing anything new. That was it.

I slept and woke, and called you on Christmas morning.

Do you remember the phone call? I've been wishing for the chance to hold my memory of it against yours, to re-talk it. Our conversation is the last thing I have of you, Bella, and I recall nothing remarkable about it. I've been over it endlessly and no trick of the mind renders it adequate for me. I want to have said something significant about the way that I love you, or for you to have said something to convince me that you'll wait as long as it takes. I wish that I could remember the sweet sound of my name on your tongue. I wish you had called me your beautiful man, the way that you do. I always tease you that it's emasculating when call me beautiful, but secretly I love the sultry, possessive tone you use when you say I'm yours.

I want to have engaged your active mind. I want to have seduced you so I could be sure that your body hung wet and waiting for me in our bed. I should have told you how desperately I wanted to be inside you, how hard I was and how badly I needed to feel the skin on the inside of your thigh, the rise of your gorgeous behind, the swell of your breast, the heat of your sex. I should have asked if you recalled the night we stood in Army Plaza and watched the sun slip below the earth, lighting the clouds from below like a footlight set beneath the stage.

I should have described the world for you.

What I do recall was the slight irritation in your voice as you hurried us past the subject of my mother. You were expecting Rose and Emmett for Christmas dinner, had errands to run. The sun was strong and you hoped for time to take a long bike ride up to Marin before you had to begin cooking. You were distant the way you can be. That's all I remember.

The doctor, the woman, asks me each morning when she comes to my room to tell her what happened on Christmas Day. She wants me to find something in my version of the story I cannot find. Perhaps Esme's version. For me, it's a way to return to you, the only one sanctioned by my caretakers. So I indulge this doctor. And she is unflappable, despite the consistency of my story. "Do you know what happened that day?" she asks. She asks me earnestly, as if I won't detect the implication that my memory is faulty. I play along.

"Yes, I know what happened."

When I've finished telling her what I remember, she asks, "Do you understand what your mother has told you about what happened that day?"

"Yes."

"And do you know why you're here?" I have stumbled more than once over this question, unsure whether I'd be wise to tell her what she wants to hear. It isn't weakness in me that hesitates, it's only the recognition that I might get out of here if I give them something. I won't give you up to them. But perhaps I should poach my sanity for them.

Most days I'm resolute. "I'm here because my mother thinks I'm crazy to love Bella. That it's crazy the way I love Bella." I gain no satisfaction from honesty on this count, so I've ventured some alternatives. "You believe I'm mistaken..." (I did once go so far as to say, "deluded,") "...about her."

The doctor presses me on this. "What did Esme tell you about Bella?" She's vague now, careful not to repeat my mother's distortions to me. She figured that out quickly.

"My mother told horrible lies about her, to provoke me." The doctor pauses. She's patient, and I know she wants more. "My mother said that Bella left me."

"Is that what your mother told you?" The doctor is determined that I repeat explicitly every vile thing my mother said that day. It's cruelty though. They think because I won't repeat such nonsense that I don't remember, or didn't hear properly.

I remember. I heard.

Missing you, painfully,

Edward

January 19, 2010

Oh, my dear, dear, Bella,

I know I have a fever, though they say they can bring it under control. They tell me I need rest, and that I'll recover. I say, when you put a person in the hospital he's bound to get sick. I betrayed us in my worst delirium. I called out your name recklessly, Bella… Bella...!, and pleaded for them to let me talk to you. I don't think my mother was in the room.

They tell me I can send you a letter. They don't know that I've been writing to you ceaselessly since Christmas Day. Words and music are the hand I hold out to you, hoping each day to feel your delicate fingers slide across my palm and into the space between my own. I know that you're listening, too. You'll imagine the letters I've written, the music I've composed for you, and answer me faithfully. When I return home, there will be mounds of paper for us to read together. Your letters and mine. I'll apologize for the lugubriousness of mine, and play for you at the piano with your soft, warm body pressed into my side.

You'll have nothing to be sorry for.

I'll apologize that I didn't write through the worst of my fever, but you'll understand that I spared you something. What seems like unbearable nothing between us now will raise its voice, and we'll be rewarded for listening to each other over the din of all this silence.

I won't give them my letters to send. How could I trust them? They wish to prove that you've abandoned me, so they'll never let you know where I am. Esme couldn't bear to be proven wrong. She knows that were I to reach you, Bella, you would be here in an instant.

And I fantasize that you come. I know my only hope is to escape and find you, but I fantasize that you liberate me instead. A phone at my bedside rings, and it's you. Somehow, you have found me. Your voice is thick and makes me want to dance. My lips curl up involuntarily at the thought of your voice.

I love you.

I love you too.

That's all we'll need to say.

Or sometimes I imagine that you break into my room in the middle of the night. You elude the guard at the entrance to the ward, and sweep in quietly as I sleep. For you, I'll sleep. I'll cool the fever. And I'll wake to the stroke of your hands on my face, my abdomen, my chest. The urgency to escape will dissipate and you'll transform my narrow bed into a patch of grass for us to lie on. A clearing in the woods. Your warm breath will tickle my lips and I'll devour your mouth with this uncontrollable desire I feel building every day that I'm away from you. I'll try to be gentle, to make love to you so slowly that you shiver with need and come like the rising ocean at high tide. But you know how badly I'll want you. You know how badly I'll want to bury myself in you, deep and hard. And you'll let me ravage you, because you like it rough and you hate to wait for anything.

I admit it. Some days I'm weak, and I want to be saved.

Weak and broken, but always yours,

Edward

January 20, 2010

My Bella,

Faith starts with a game of peek-a-boo before we have control of our own limbs, and is tested and taught with every breath thereafter. Why, then, is it so difficult to hold onto its lessons? In the beginning, when I loved you and we had finally eviscerated our chaste and sibling-like bond, I was terrified. You had charged at me the way you charged into my room that first morning. Wordlessly, without apology or explanation, you reached out one day and tore the clothes from my body, pulling me on top of you, consuming me with your sex. I was convinced you would retreat just as hastily.

You did, in fact. A week later you disappeared as wordlessly as you'd thrust us into a lustful dance that would have me in its grip from that moment forward. And then, months later, you came back to me. You explained your behavior in all the rational language of fear, and I said I understood. The truth is that I never understood. I loved you and no amount of fear could have led me away. Your return struck me as nothing more than a happy accident. I didn't believe you'd stay.

But you did stay. You invited me into your home, and planted us firmly in the soil of mutual friends, dinner times, home furnishings, and our unquenchable desire. If faith eluded me in the beginning, you taught it to me day by day. Faith resides in joy, and we were joyful. Even your anxieties, about our friends and family, about my mother, emboldened me. I learned that I had a strength to complement yours, that I made you strong by believing you could be. We had roles to play. Lover and beloved, tempter and tempted. It's true that you were more often the actor, and I the acted upon. But we traded equally, and if you bore down on me it was only because I would bear you. When I leaned on you, you were an angel. These are the lessons of faith.

I am grateful that you taught me well, or this waiting would be unbearable. It's been nearly four weeks since Christmas. Almost three weeks since I was scheduled to arrive home and bring the new year with me. If nothing else, I've impressed Esme and Carlisle with my steadfastness. Today, Esme was so desperate to see me crack that she offered to let me call you. "See for yourself," she said tenderly. Falsely. "Bella is gone." She sighed heavily as though her sympathy would sway me.

I called.

Our line has been disconnected.

Faith.

What does she think this proves? That you've given up? You might just as easily have come looking for me. You might be stalking the hospital this minute. She and the doctor hung over me like sweaty wrestlers, breathing and flexing in anticipation of the final pin. They pounced on the flicker of worry I betrayed as I hung up the phone. I'm worried about you. They don't understand.

Where are you?

Desperate,

Edward


	3. Chapter 3

Disclaimer: Any Twilight characters that may appear in this story belong to Stephenie Meyer. The remainder is my original work. No reproduction is allowed without my written consent.

**A/N – This chapter is short, but it felt self-contained so I'm posting it alone. A little bit of lemon to get us through the rough night. **

In The Clearing – Chapter 3

January 22, 2010

Sweetest Bella,

I've been sleeping. Last night I dreamt that I drove up to the cabin in the mountains. The place where we met as children, and then again as adults. It was so real, true to place and time. It was winter, and I had escaped the hospital while Esme fetched a snack from the vending machine. The shitty rental car that I drove from the airport just over three weeks ago was parked in the corner of the hospital lot, neatly swept of snow and clear of ice. As if my mother had tended it the way she'd like to tend to me. In an instant I was flying down the 101 to the edge of Olympic Park, flicking midday flurries off the windshield with my wipers. And by dusk I was ascending the mountain. Despite the season, I kept an eye out for deer.

I had gone to the cabin to wait for you. It was frigid. I lit a fire, but couldn't stop shivering. I raided the three bedrooms, pulling the warmest blankets from each of the beds, and then sat in a cocoon of wool on the hearthstone, the fireplace cavernous in my dream and roaring with flames. I was still cold.

Finally, I slept. And when I woke, your naked, warm body was molded into mine and the blankets were gone. Your fingers dug into my biceps and your gorgeous breasts were flattened into my chest. We lay on our sides, you with your back to the fire, and I wrapped a hand around the back of your thigh to pull your leg over my own.

"Bella…"

"Shhh. It's o.k., Edward, I'm here."

"But, Bella…"

"No, Edward. No talking. Take me now."

There was always lust between us, even when we were kids and didn't know what it was. Or perhaps you knew. I may have been more naïve. But it sat like dry kindling, seemingly innocuous, deceptively still, until you threw a match on it. And instantly it burned. It nearly consumed me for over a year and still sometimes I look at the roaring fire you started and wonder if I can keep it contained.

I only have those thoughts away from you. With you I am in a fog. My dick is usually too hard to worry about fire. I'd gladly burn for you.

I did as you asked. As if you needed to ask. I lowered my head to pull one hard, beautifully pink nipple into my mouth so I could taste you, and you arched your back further, wordlessly begging me to bite. You wanted me under your skin as badly as I wanted to be there. I reached down and dragged my hand up your thigh until I had your whole sex in my palm and a finger between your wet folds. I pushed inside of you greedily and curled my finger up to caress the spot that sets you moaning and begging.

"Edward, now! Please, please…!" You sounded so hot, the match scraping a rock, begging to be lit.

You wrapped your arms around my neck and pulled my mouth up to yours while I started to thrust my finger deeper inside of you, and then slowly pulled it out, dragging the wetness up to your clit and circling my finger over it until it was as hard as I was. Until it was burning, too. You came quickly, your shoulders trembling and legs shaking in their effort to close around my hand. I used my free hand and my own thigh to hold your legs open, prolonging your pleasure until it was almost pain. I could see it in your breathtaking face. Ecstasy, and desperation.

"Oh, fuck, Edward. Now, please, now!"

I love that you need me as badly as I need you. That is the essence of this combustible heat between us. I rubbed my rigid cock up and down your sex a couple of times before sliding into you and then stilled, using every ounce of self-control I had to torture you one moment longer. I knew what you wanted.

And you didn't wait for it. You rolled yourself on top of me and thrust your hips down as hard as you could, pushing me even deeper inside of you and sending the first wave of unbearable pleasure from my cock into my thighs. I could feel it in my throat, a burning.

Your need was strong, and your desire demanding. But what I've discovered about myself is that there is a predatory animal inside of me that only you can awaken. And as sure as you are of your desire, as fiercely as you need me, that need is no match for the wild thing you let loose in me. I have to constantly battle with myself to restrain from tearing into you, from clawing at your flesh, from fucking you into oblivion. You often say that you want it hard but you've never understood how fierce that thing inside of me is.

Over time, I've learned to dance with it. I let the animal strike and then restrain it just before it hurts you. It was through predatory eyes that I watched you throw your head back and ride me, your fingers buried in my chest. I saw flames licking the air around us and felt myself melting from the inside out.

I put one hand on your hip and the other around your shoulder as I rolled you underneath me forcefully. I had to dominate you to get control of the thing that would otherwise devour you. We never speak of it, but you instinctively know this and I could see the excitement in your eye the moment you recognized the animal in mine.

You always look so serious when your passion overtakes you and I can feel your body wracked with pleasure. I know my own expressions mirror yours. I can hardly feel the confines of my human form when I'm inside of you, the throbbing reaching out beyond my skin so that I almost feel I've become part of you.

I got harder and harder inside of you, my body and mind trying to brace against the explosion that might take us both out of this world. I could hardly see, but at the center of my hazed vision, ringed in fire, was the brown-haired beauty, whose eyes spoke directly to mine.

You were crying. Not hard, but you had dug your teeth into your soft lower lip and your cheeks were wet with tears. I didn't need to ask. I knew. I felt it too. It was too much. Too much joy, too much pleasure, too much need. So much to lose.

I braced myself over you with one arm and used the other hand to wipe the tears from one of your cheeks. Then I lowered my wet fingers between us and rubbed your clit as I thrust deeper to bring you closer to the climax I felt building. My body was always at war with itself inside of you. Desperately wanting release, desperately wanting not to let go. And my heart wanted you with me, to feel every moment of pleasure with me.

We held there, thrusting, panting, both beginning to tremble from the effort to keep our climax at bay. For minutes. For hours. I don't know. It was a dream, but it was real. Like I said, you match my dreams in reality. There is no one but you.

Finally, your moaning escalated and you screamed my name as you came, your muscles clenching around my cock as I convulsed into you. The white out. My body burned at your altar.

My forehead fell to yours as I came, and finally I slid along your side, breathing heavily and exhausted. You were whimpering and I could feel you still coming around me. I wrapped my arms around you as tightly as I could and held on, knowing it was too good. Too much. I held you like that until you finally quieted and buried your face into my chest. I was getting drowsy, but I didn't want to miss the feeling of your perfect skin under my fingers. I wanted your ass and your breasts and your mouth and your legs and your sex in my hands and in my mouth and never wanted to let go. I wanted your heart sewn into mine.

"I love you, Bella. You are my life," I said, as I drifted back to sleep on the floor by the waning fire.

When I woke there was a blanket over me and a thistle in my hair.

Odd to sleep and wake in a dream.

I wish I could have remained in the dream because I would have run after you. I would have gone straight to the clearing in the pine nursery where we hid from our parents as little children. Just after Charlie died. I would have found you rooted there, in the frozen soil, glowing green against the white of the trees.

Instead, I woke to find my mother sobbing in the corner of my hospital room in the early morning. I felt tired. I am tired.

"Please stop, Mom. Please stop crying."

"I'm sorry," she said, struggling to control her voice as she ceased to heave. "I'm sorry, sweety. I just want you to get well. I want to make this easier for you. I would bring Bella back if I could."

"Where is she, Mom?" I pleaded.

Where are you? Why won't they let you visit me?

I NEED you,

Edward


	4. Chapter 4

Disclaimer: Any Twilight characters that may appear in this story belong to Stephenie Meyer. The remainder is my original work. No reproduction is allowed without my written consent.

* * *

In The Clearing - Chapter 4

January 23, 2010

Dear and always forgiving, Bella,

Would you forgive me if I lied my way out of here? I realize that above all it's the way I love you that unsettles them. It's not merely that I love the girl who was raised with me like a sister, but the way I love her. They read my passion as lunacy. I'm the drunk at dinner, making a scene. This love is unseemly. And I've always been proud of it. It doesn't pay to be rational when you're inclined to love against expectation. It requires a kind of insanity. It's true.

Is it time for me to lie? I could tell my mother that I'm convinced. I could lay every doubt I've ever had at her feet. You don't love me anymore. You won't wait for me. I was a fool to have trusted your devotion. I won't love like that again. Not passionately. I could lie. And then, perhaps, I could leave. I could come home. What harm would be done? Plenty of people live with dishonesty; why can't I?

I won't betray you. I won't even admit I have doubts. When I have your arms around me, I'll confess my doubts to you. We'll hold each other on a quiet afternoon and disinfect ourselves of all this poison. I am only human. And what I've learned is that even the strongest faith without constant affirmation will falter. Perhaps I've discovered a personal flaw. I don't know. Each day that passes when I don't hear the gravel in your voice, or feel the reassurance of your hands on me absolutely anywhere, it becomes a little harder to believe that you still love me. I will not, cannot, believe my mother's version of things. But I am no longer certain that you'll wait for me, or that you haven't already given up. How could less than a month's silence shake the solid faith I had in us? It's a personal weakness. I do know.

I will force myself to believe. You wouldn't leave without saying goodbye. In this way I reassure myself. Until you tell me that I should cease, I will continue to wait. They can't keep me in here forever. And when I get out, I will find you. With any luck I'll be out by spring, and in June we'll watch the paintbrush bloom. Or we'll go home to San Francisco and steel ourselves against the summer fog. Faith.

Yours in faith,

Edward

* * *

_The doctor comes to my room. She's wearing lilac under her hospital coat. I welcome the wink of color above her white collar and at her wrists, where the coat sleeves cut just short. "Good morning," she says._

"_Good morning," I say._

"_How did you sleep last night?"_

"_Fine, thank you."_

"_Did you have any more interesting dreams?" She has taken an interest in my dreams since I told her about the last one. A rated PG version. I can't bear to tell her that I'm struggling with the idea of you. I don't answer. She is patient, and moves on. "Can we talk about Christmas?"_

_I nod. Please let this nightmare end. I can't re-live this forever._

"_Can you tell me what happened on Christmas Day?"_

"_We opened presents in the morning. I excused myself around 10:30, and went to my room to call Bella. As I was saying, 'I love you,' my mother picked up the phone in the kitchen. She overheard me. She said 'sorry,' quickly, and hung up."_

"_And how do you think your mother felt about having overheard you?"_

"_She was upset."_

"_How do you know?"_

"_I know because Esme has been upset since I first told her that Bella and I were lovers. She took Bella in as a daughter after Charlie died and believed it was her responsibility to protect Bella. I know because Esme always thought of us as siblings and can't let go of the children we were to her. I know because she would barely speak to me at lunch. I could have let it go, I suppose. I just didn't want to. It seemed like the same old routine, and I was sick of it."_

"_Tell me what happened at lunch."_

"_We fought."_

"_Can you recall the fight exactly?"_

"_Yes." _

_I'm so tired of this. I wait. Do I have to tell this to you again? The doctor grabs hold of one lilac cuff and tugs at it, straightening her shirt sleeve beneath the coat. She must be tired of this too. I no longer see signs of the same pity she had for me when I first came here. We commiserate now._

"_I picked a fight. I was angry and asked my mother what her problem was. I provoked her."_

"_Is that how it happened?"_

"_Yes." _

"_What did you say to your mother?"_

"_I told her she had better get over it, or she would lose me. I was furious. I said, 'I fuck Bella, and you're just going to have to deal with that.'"_

"_How did Esme respond?"_

"_She cried, naturally. She cried."_

"_And did she say anything back to you?"_

_I hate this. I remember what my mother said. I'm so ashamed, and the doctor is waiting. She knows what Esme said to me, but how can I admit that I heard it? _

"_She was sad. Genuinely sad."_

"_Did she say she was sad?"_

"_She said she was sorry, that she had been sorry."_

_The doctor is still waiting. She knows there's more. "She said she was trying, and that she wanted me to give her a chance. She said she loved us both."_

"_And how did you respond?"_

"_I walked out of the room."_

_How can that be? I walked out of the room. My mother was genuinely sorry, loved us both, and I walked away from her. The doctor is staring at me, contemplating my admission. She must know this; Esme certainly has told her. Perhaps she hasn't been sure who to believe until now._

"_Can you tell me what happened next?"_

_I can't look the doctor in the eye. "Nothing."_

"_Nothing?"_

"_No. I just went up to my room and fell apart. I tried to call Bella, but she was out and not answering her cell. I figured she was out riding her bike, so I left a message. I was enraged when I left the message. I told her I'd had a fight with my mother, and that I was sorry. I was sorry to be ruining her Christmas with my sadness and anger. It's always seemed to me such a waste of time, all of this fighting. Life is short."_

"_Then what happened?"_

"_I stayed in my room until it was dark, I'm not sure how long. My father knocked on my door, but I told him to give me some space. And I guess I fell asleep. I heard the phone ring. I didn't even try to answer it. It was already late and my mother answered it from her bedroom."_

"_And who was it who called?"_

"_I don't know."_

"_You don't know?" The doctor is fidgeting. She realizes I've changed my story again. She is roused from her boredom._

"_No, I don't know." She wants to point out that I've always insisted it was you who called, and that I've been sure you and my mother had a fight. _

_But I don't know anything anymore._

"_What happened next?"_

"_I heard my mother's raised voice from the kitchen, so I came downstairs. I was afraid..."_

"_What were you afraid of?"_

"_That Esme would be cruel to Bella, to spite me for how I had behaved."_

"_And what happened when you came downstairs?"_

"_Esme had just hung up the phone. She came at me immediately, almost threw herself at me. She was crying again. And I was still angry."_

"_What did Esme say?" _

_I cannot say._

"_What did your mother say?"_

"_She said...my mother said that Bella was gone, that she had left me."_

"_Are those the words your mother used?" _

_No. Those were not her words._

"_Tell me, are those the exact word your mother used?"_

"_No! No." I cannot say._

"_Can you tell me exactly what your mother said?" The doctor's voice is very soft and there is a ring of lilac around her throat and another at her wrist._

"_My mother said that Bella was dead."_

"_And did you believe her?"_

"_No."_

"_How do you feel about your mother?"_

_I love her._

"_I hate her."_

"_Do you believe her now?"_

"_No. I don't believe her."_

_

* * *

_

**A/N Yes, I know, it's sad and getting sadder. This is a story about faith in love. Which is very hard to keep. I'm not sure I have it in real life, but that's why I have Edward and Bella. So, keep the faith and I hope you'll keep reading.**


	5. Chapter 5

Disclaimer: Any Twilight characters that may appear in this story belong to Stephenie Meyer. The remainder is my original work. No reproduction is allowed without my written consent.

* * *

In The Clearing - Chapter 5

January 25, 2010

Dearest Bella,

When I was very young, I was frightened by the unruly pine nursery that grew up to the edge of the property at our cabin on the mountain. It had grown out of control and I was convinced it was haunted. In the late afternoon, in July, my mother and I took walks. We would trace the stream behind our house, hike to the summit, or stroll along the road that winds across the mountain. My mother also enjoyed walking the perimeter of the nursery, and occasionally she disappeared into the dense overgrowth of pine trees. I refused to join her on those walks, and while she was gone I would run nervous circles around the yard. I was afraid to go indoors then, to let the nursery out of my sight; afraid that she would disappear forever into a choke of evergreens.

One day my mother asked me to join her for a walk through the pines. I was terrified, but I wished urgently to be by her side. I didn't want her to go without me. She was my mother, and I trusted her. So I followed her. At first we trudged along the perimeter, through the mud and long grass that runs between our property and the nursery. The path was kept by no one, and had been given over to the weeds. Thistle bushes populated both sides of the path, and soon our feet were wet through our sneakers from skulking the muddy grass. I knew my mother intended to steer us away from this unwelcoming swamp, but I preferred it to the narrow and forbidding openings into the pine trees we passed on our way. Finally, she stopped at one such opening. It was slightly wider than the others we had passed, but equally dark and wretched. Without a word, she plunged into the nursery.

I hesitated, but I followed. We had been chatting until then, and now we were silent. The ground beneath the trees was nearly bare, and dry, and the walking easier. My mother went quickly. I stared ahead at her, struggling to keep up. I had to hop and run. I avoided looking into the thicket of trees on either side of us. The path was so narrow at points that we had to turn sideways to get between the looming pines. Long, needle-heavy branches closed above me where the path was most narrow. The air in the nursery was dry, despite the absence of sunlight, and my ankles began to itch. I remember the scent of pine. It was Christmas in July.

My mother stopped, and because I hadn't taken my eyes off her back, I didn't realize we had come upon a clearing. Now I looked past her and realized that here, in the very middle of the enormous nursery, was a little meadow. It was not large, perhaps the absence of six or seven trees. Six or seven trees, which most likely stood for a season in living rooms nearby, adorned with lights and tinsel. It was forbidden to chop down trees from this nursery, but someone, perhaps several people together, had ventured into the thick of this evergreen forest and removed just enough trees to create a clearing. Grass had grown, and the sun strained at midday to find the hole. There were even dandelions. I'm still not sure why the forest never consumed that clearing. It has persisted against nature.

That is the clearing I took you to when we were children. We hid there sometimes. My mother always knew where we were. I never told you. I pretended the place was ours, a secret only you and I shared. And I trusted my mother not to seek us there.

I love my mother. She taught me the rewards of bravery.

Love,

Edward

* * *

"_How do you feel about your mother now?"_

"_I love her."_

"_Do you believe her?"_

_I don't know. I don't know._

"_Yes. I believe her. I have no choice."_

_

* * *

_**A/N Faith, that's all I can say. And there's more.**


	6. Chapter 6

Disclaimer: Any Twilight characters that may appear in this story belong to Stephenie Meyer. The remainder is my original work. No reproduction is allowed without my written consent.

* * *

In The Clearing - Chapter 6

February 10, 2010

My dearest heart,

I was taken to the hospital on Christmas Day, after I became enraged and hit my mother as she tried to subdue me. Everyone's worst suspicion confirmed, that I am crazy. Crazy to have fallen in love with you, the girl I'd been raised with by a mother who treated us like siblings. So crazy that I'm unable to accept the truth about you despite weeks of evidence that you are gone. But I'm not crazy. I am in love.

I may be hallucinating, but the knowledge does nothing to ease the memory of you. You and I began this conversation years ago, sitting at the edge of a bed. You wrapped your warm arms around me and looked me in the eye, and I knew that you saw me. We talked endlessly. We had grown apart, lost touch, and needed to catch up. We were breathless as we raced through the stories of our lives, you zooming down the freeway of your life, waving your arms at the scenic landscape, while I lowered a drawbridge to the moated castle of my life. I didn't understand what I felt for you then. I was in love.

The only thing I've asked of life is that we be allowed to continue our conversation. Can I continue to imagine your side of it forever? I write to you, still. It is no longer a secret. I write to you, and at night you talk me to sleep. I imagine you see me, that you look me in the eye. And I'm not insane.

I am not insane. They say you are dead, and that if I can accept that, then I am sane. They say they found pieces of your mangled bike at the edge of a cliff along Route 1, well north of the Golden Gate Bridge. Tire marks suggest you were run off the road by a car. They can't find your body, so they believe you drowned in the water below. Rose and Emmett contacted the police when you didn't come home for Christmas dinner. They knew you had gone for a long ride. The Mill Valley police had already found the mangled bike, traced the registration number, and were looking for a next of kin. Emmett called our house immediately. Esme answered the phone.

That is what they tell me. They tell me I have lost the love of my life.

I wish I were insane.

Yours for eternity,

Edward


	7. Chapter 7

Disclaimer: Any Twilight characters that may appear in this story belong to Stephenie Meyer. The remainder is my original work. No reproduction is allowed without my written consent.

* * *

In The Clearing - Chapter 7

February 10, 2010

Dearest Edward,

Where are you? I'm so scared. Everything I knew and loved is gone. I miss you.

I can't believe that you would give up on me, but what else can I believe? I'm alone. In the darkest moment, I'm alone. Did your parents convince you that it was wrong? I don't believe they could. What should I believe? Tell me.

Your Bella

* * *

**A/N o.k., so it hardly constitutes a chapter, but I figured you'd rather I post this rather than wait for the rest after the last chapter. Better to know something than nothing at all. Right? I hope so, anyway.**


	8. Chapter 8

**Disclaimer: Any Twilight characters that may appear in this story belong to Stephenie Meyer. The remainder is my original work. No reproduction is allowed without my written consent.**

**CHAPTER 8**

* * *

March 1, 2010

Love of my life, Bella,

I don't know which is worse, that I haven't written in weeks or that I'm writing to you at all. Is it worse to accept what every rational person would, that you're gone? Or is it worse to let go of hope, to let go of you, when you're my only reason for living? I can't seem to inhabit either reality. The one without you in it is unbearable, and I won't be able to remain in that world for long. The one I keep you in through faith is almost as barren, now, since I have no evidence of you.

They say I'm better, but that I'm still acting erratically. I got rid of my cell. I asked my whole family to change their numbers. They were utterly baffled and worried as hell, but they complied the way you do when you're at the mercy of a madman. They don't understand that I can't bear to be touched by anything that reminds me of you, other than what I can conjure in my own head. I can't bear the call from your editor, wondering where your next chapter is. I can't bear the calls from your friends offering condolences. I can't bear to be found in a world where you don't exist. Emmett and Rosalie took care of closing up our apartment back in January. They tried to tell me what they'd done with our things. With our life. I couldn't listen.

The only thing I've wanted to know was the precise mile marker where your bike was found. Rosalie being Rosalie, she had guessed it would matter and got the information from the cop on the night…that night.

We've gone abroad now, the whole family, as though a change in geography could alter my internal terrain. Everyone still believes a break is the answer for me. But there's only one answer now. I think I know the spot where they found your bike. A gorgeous bend in the road that lays the Pacific at your feet. I will join you there. There is no other choice for me.

Oh, Bella, please forgive me for being so weak...

Yours in light and dark,

Edward

* * *

March 10, 2010

Edward, my love,

I feel utterly helpless. Helpless without you. Helpless to reach you. I've tried to explain to every doctor and nurse who will listen that they need to find you and bring you to me. They nod and look concerned, but you don't appear. Have they found you? Have they told you where I am? I tried our number and it's been disconnected. I tried your cell and it's been disconnected. I tried Emmett and Rose and Jasper and Alice and Esme and Carlisle. Without my own cell phone, it took weeks for me to get the help I needed to track down all those numbers from my hospital bed.

It's as though you all ceased to exist. The cell phones have all been disconnected and home numbers changed. I fear the doctors believe I made you up out of my addled, broken head. My entire family has been wiped off the planet and I'm being treated as though I've lost my mind. Is it possible that I dreamed you? You have always been like a dream.

The doctors say I need to work at understanding what's happened. Where I am. Who I am. They don't understand that I'm nothing without you.

Still, I'm trying. Mostly for you, I'm trying to understand.

What's happened?

I had an accident. Hit and run. I nearly went over the cliff. A few more inches and that would have been it. They say I'm incredibly lucky. Lucky that I wasn't propelled further. Lucky that I was found so soon after I was hit. Lucky that it was a doctor who found me. An orthopedic surgeon from Petaluma, taking a scenic drive on Christmas day with his wife. Lucky that he had the presence of mind not to wait for an ambulance out on that remote stretch of Route 1. Lucky that his spacious Mercedes has good shocks, and that he was able to perform CPR while his wife drove us here to the hospital in San Rafael. Lucky.

I've felt lucky my whole life. Undeserving of you by my side. I don't feel lucky today.

Where am I?

I'm at the same hospital where I was brought on Christmas Day, although they say if I continue to improve I'll be released to a rehab center. I was in a coma for nearly three weeks. They tell me that after four there's rarely much chance for recovery. After two there is usually some lasting damage to the brain. Again, I was lucky.

After three weeks in a coma it took almost a month before I began to be reliably conscious and aware of my surroundings. I vaguely remember those weeks. A nightmare. A nightmare in the dark, without you, without your warm, green eyes to remind me why waking was so urgent. I think I wrote to you once. I was so lost. I'm still lost.

I wasn't carrying ID. I know, I know. You're always on my case about that. The doctor who found me never saw my cell. When I woke they told me I had been hit crossing the road. I had to explain I'd been biking. The doctor never saw my bike either. They say they alerted the state and local authorities that they had a Jane Doe, in case someone was looking for me. Apparently no one looked.

They want me to understand, to make sense. How can I make sense of that? Even if you had decided to leave me, I can't believe you would be unmoved by my disappearance. No one contacted the hospital. And now you're all gone – erased.

Where do I send this letter, Edward? Tell me, where?

Your saddest ever,

Bella

* * *

April 15, 2010

My dear, missing, Edward,

I'm writing to you because I need to. I need to believe you'll read these words one day. I need hope. You've always been my hope. You've been the most constant joy in my life. The timid and lovely boy. And the kind-hearted, beautiful man who knows every inch of my flesh better than I do myself. My beautiful man.

You've always been mine, even before you were. But I had to claim you, against your reticence and the belief that we should continue to pretend we were siblings even when our hearts and our bodies knew differently. I knew by the time I was 13 to be grateful that we weren't actually related. I waited, and I worried, too, what others would think. Your real siblings, Alice and Emmett. I tried to run away from what I felt when I left for college. It took years, and I understood eventually that it would have to be my choice.

As much thought as I'd given it, that first night was unplanned. In some respects, I wasn't ready. Except that my body couldn't wait. My heart raced whenever you got close. I was aroused constantly around you, so badly that sometimes I'd have to get away from you. I'd lie on my bed and press my hand between my legs and try hard not to think of the hair below your navel that I'd seen so many times, or the curve of your muscled shoulders, or the feeling of your long fingers clutching at my hand as you pulled me through a crowd. I was always the one who prolonged the touch, who held onto you a moment longer than necessary. I was the one who noticed how your eyes changed, almost changed color, when lust you refused to acknowledge crept between us. And so I was the one who attacked you first. I saw you look at me that way, that night, in your parents' cabin up on the mountain, and finally, after so many years of restraint, my hands got ahead of my conscience. They were on you before the thought crossed my mind. They were ripping at your clothes to get to your skin. I had waited for you, in so many ways. I had no idea what I was doing, but it was beyond thought. It almost seemed as if being with you was already in my physical memory. It felt so right.

I knew you were scared, but if I'd thought about it I could have predicted that you'd ultimately be the one to save us. You're an idealist. You believe in the triumph of right and happy endings.

I wasn't thinking ahead, only grabbing at what I needed – had needed for so long. But it was you who pulled us through. After I'd had you, after you'd been inside of me, the love I'd always felt for you transformed into a controlling master, so fierce it felt menacing in my naïvete. You owned me. I was terrified. My mind caught up to my shattered body and could only form inchoate panic for thoughts. And I ran. Or rather, I hid. I'll never get over the shame I feel for having left you at the precise moment when we found each other. You've forgiven me many times over, but I'll never forgive myself.

And what would I have done if you hadn't come after me? Where would I be now?

What will I do if you've left me?

I'm in a rehab center now. With any luck I'll be out of here by the end of May. Where will I go? I'll look for you. I have to. I should hate you for abandoning me, but I could never hate you. I don't know how to make myself believe that you'd do it. I have to know. If you have, I may die. I'm sorry. It's weak and small and I'm not supposed to say it, but I know it's true. Nothing that car did to me could rival what you have the power to do in leaving. So, I'll look for you because I have no choice. And because you would do the same for me.

Your very,

sad, lonely, lost,

Bella

* * *

June 5, 2010

Dear Bella,

For the past several months I have been sleep-walking through my days. I have existed only to give something to my parents, Alice and Emmett. To make sure that I don't tread upon their grief over you. I try to remember that they loved you, too.

We've been abroad. Esme and Carlisle thought I needed to get away after I was released from the hospital. They didn't understand that I am nowhere, no matter where they take me. We went to Italy. Everyone told me it was beautiful, but I'm a blind man. I saw nothing but the absence of you.

It's June now, and my mother plans to take me to the house on the mountain. We'll ascend by a road that I know in my sleep and pull into the driveway, which cuts through the trees that hang about the house like a curtain. Esme will light the house, build a fire, and cook us dinner. And I'll walk to a clearing in the woods and lay thistles and an avalanche lily there for you. Like an animal trained by instinct, I'll seek you. Against reason and expectation, I dream that I'll find you there.

Grief like this kills everything in its wake. I remember that I love my parents, my family. I remember but I can't touch the emotion. I remember that I should feel guilty for leaving them, but I can't feel anything. There's nothing where my heart was. Sometimes when we were together, I felt I might break a rib my heart had swelled so big. And now there is nothing. No trace of the organ you set on fire, no trace of the person I have been.

The only thing that has kept me moving is the knowledge that I can join you. I will join you. I can barely find the strength to tie my shoes, and in those days in February when I began to hear the words that were spoken, I was a zombie. I am still a zombie. But I have that mile marker memorized, and when I leave the mountain for the last time, leave the empty clearing behind, I'll be headed to the cliff where you left me. I know I may never find you after this life, but I must try.

Forever yours,

Edward


	9. Chapter 9

**Disclaimer: Any Twilight characters that may appear in this story belong to Stephenie Meyer. The remainder is my original work. No reproduction is allowed without my written consent.**

**Chapter 9**

* * *

_It's early June and I feel weightless. It should be a joyful lightness. My first steps free from institutionalized care, free to explore the world I've been shut off from for months. Fully recovered. That's what they call me. A miracle. Yet I feel like a phantom, neither fully dead nor close to alive._

_I can't explain my behavior of the past several months. After trying unsuccessfully to reach Edward, the Cullens – my family – I refused to grasp any hand held out to me, even those I have to believe were stretched out to me from my former life. My editor, my small circle of friends outside the Cullens, the landlord who must have some idea what's become of my apartment, my life. I've had no contact with any of them, and had to work hard to convince my caretakers that I had a plan for my release. I lied, in fact. I lied because some part of me has faith in Edward. Some part of me can't believe I've been abandoned. It's a private faith, and I feel protective of it. So, I lied._

_Edward always said I was a poor liar, but I think I'm quite the competent thespian. Didn't I lie to him, once? _

_Twice, actually. The first lie was told during years of chastity between us. He colluded in that one, so for years I told myself it wasn't egregious. It was, though. I know that now after months of nights alone. It was egregious to have wasted a second we had together pretending to be something we weren't._

_The second lie I told when I ran from him. The act was a lie, a betrayal of what my heart begged me to hold dear._

_Lying to a hospital counselor is cake by comparison. Sure, I have someone waiting for me. I've spoken with my employer. I have somewhere to go._

_I do have somewhere to go. It's not a home or a long-term solution to the emptiness that stretches before me, but I have to plant my feet in the truth, in the actual soil of it. _

_This morning I dressed in newly purchased jeans and a simple long-sleeved t-shirt, and hailed a taxi to the Sonoma County Airport. I flew directly to Seattle, and now it's late afternoon and I'm on a road I know in my sleep. When I was very young, before Charlie died, I remember driving back to Forks after exhausting days in the city. Trips like that were rare with Charlie, who was a country boy to his core. The magic of the urban landscape and the treasures I found under the canopy of its skyline glow like neon signs in the dark of my early memory. _

_Later, the Cullens would take us every few weeks, to bookstores, parks, or kayaking in the sound. Ever a holdout against practicality, the Cullen family required two cars to convey it. Carlisle wouldn't be caught dead in a mini-van. It became custom that Edward and I would ride with Esme in the newest Volvo, while Alice and Emmett enjoyed the bucket seats and roaring motor of Carlisle's latest sports car. I might have felt self-conscious about the fact that the Cullens resisted buying a vehicle to accommodate my addition to their family, but I was too grateful for the time alone with Edward to have thought of it._

_Esme left us to our own world in the backseat, where we played word games, told stories, and danced around the unlit fire that would someday burn between us. Even then, as immature as we were, Edward looked me in the eye when we talked. Edward saw me, even then. _

_When we got to high school we'd plan occasional trips to Seattle, talking through mental lists of all the stores we wanted to hit, all the books we wanted to buy, the neighborhoods we wanted to explore. We'd bicker over who would drive and Edward would almost always win. It was hard to justify the gas it took to drive my truck that distance, so Edward would speed us there in Esme's Volvo, and drive perceptibly slower on the way back. I knew he prolonged those drives, just fractionally but enough that I noticed. _

_I know this road, the way Edward tracked deer on it by the glow of their eyes, the way the air smells as the woods deepen on either side. I know it and yet I'm no longer the passenger on it. For as long as I can remember, the world was filtered through two pairs of eyes, his and mine. I saw through a prism, all senses refracted and multiplied through his perceptions and mine. Months of silence and I now feel like I'm in an echo chamber, ghosting through life with only whispers of light and smell and no music or touch to speak of. I'd almost rather be the gravel under my wheels now, at least belonging here, with the weight of other travelers on my back. I'd sooner turn to ash on this stretch of road than be doomed to drive it again without him. _

_My hands begin to shake on the wheel as I get closer, as I begin to spot trees that I know like familiar faces in a crowd. What am I seeking? The cabin will most surely be empty, and then what? Will I go to Forks? Will I bang on Carlisle and Esme's door and demand that they see me, demand that they confront their erstwhile daughter? _

_I don't know. I honestly don't know. I know nothing except that I'm called here, against reason and better judgment. I need to lie down in the clearing that Edward brought me to in childhood, and maybe there I can decide what to believe. I need to believe in something._

_It's nearly five o'clock and although it's June, the light has already taken on an ethereal quality. The horizon is raised into the sky by the height of the trees. The sun drops out of hours before sunset up here, depending on the time of year. Above the trees the sky is eggshell blue with wisps of clouds, and if Edward were with me it would look just like heaven. _

_I'm rounding the last bend and a gleam from the Cullen's property catches my eye. I can't see the house yet, cradled as it is in a ring of redwood trees. But my heart has already sped at the perception of something there. It could be the reflection of the sun off the skylight, it could be I caught site of the old wheel barrow by the shed. It could be nothing._

_I'm turning into the drive and my racing heart stutters and leaps into my throat. I gasp, and slam on the breaks before descending the drive into the yard. _

She's here.

_It's been years since I visited the cabin, and years since Esme and I have spoken, but I'd know the Cullen Volvo anywhere. It's sitting in the yard, and the curtains are tied back on the kitchen windows. It's cool already, and there's smoke puffing from the chimney over the living room. _

_For a moment I'm unable to think. There aren't words for what I feel. I've been so lost to myself and robbed of even the smallest familiarity, and now everything that once signaled love and family and salvation after I lost my own parents is laid out in this simple vision of a home, with a car in the yard and a fire on the hearth. I'm slowly aware that I'm crying. Noiselessly, tears are streaming down my cheeks, and then I'm choking on a sob. I'm simultaneously elated and in agony. This is my home. It means I exist, it means I'm sane, it means I have something to believe in. But no one has offered it to me. How can it be here, how can she be here, and have left me to suffer alone for months? _

_And where is Edward?_

_The pain wins out quickly, as I'm forced back to my present by the ready memories of the months since my accident. I can't allow myself to melt into sentimentality. I came here seeking the truth, no matter how painful. I need to believe in something, even if that something pulverizes me like so much gravel on the road. I need the truth._

_I breathe deeply, first in quick sobs, and then more slowly, calming my nerves and wiping the tears with the back of my hand. When I'm composed, I ease off the break and glide into the yard to park my car next to Esme's. I take another minute alone with the interior of my rental car, switch off the ignition, and leave my purse on the passenger seat. I'm anything but weightless now. My limbs feel like lead, my stomach an iron cage rattled by a fire-breathing dragon. I think a gladiator is about to do battle with mythical creatures in my belly. I barely have the strength to close the car door behind me. I'm shaking. Violently shaking. I've been through so much, I must at least have the strength to get me to the kitchen door. _

_The cabin is simple. No basement, one floor, toilet and shower rigged in a shed through the breezeway from the kitchen. But the kitchen is warm and inviting in my memory and I know the sound of the smack of the screen door that opens onto it as well as I know Edward's laugh. I grasp the screen door handle and call through the kitchen into the dimly lit hall. I hear the fire crackling from the living room at the other end of it._

"_Hello?" I wait. There's no answer. A little louder, "Hello? Is anyone there?"_

_I hear a rustling, and I take one last cleansing breath as I open the screen door and step across the threshold. I look up and see Esme teetering toward me down the hall. She looks smaller than I remember. Her hair is in disarray, like she's been sleeping. She looks old._

"_Esme?" I'm so scared. What do I say? This is the woman who raised me, who is by all rights my mother. I have loved her like a mother, and I've been lost without her in the years since Edward and I became lovers. I've been angry and confused and deeply hurt by her rejection. And now I've lost so much more. Edward…._

_I need her to see me, to tell me something to make sense of what I've lost. In the moment between my call to her and her response, I almost believe I'd forgive anything for the simple acknowledgement that I exist and that she once loved me._

_She looks up now and stops at the end of the hall, at the edge of the kitchen. She pales, nearly swoons. She looks like she's seen through me, as though I'm as little here as I feel. She trembles and then falls to her knees, nearly collapsing completely. Her head hangs and she holds it between her hands._

"_Esme! Esme! Are you all right?" I forget all of my own torment in the moment and run through the kitchen to her, crouching down beside her. "Esme, what's wrong? I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Did I startle you?" _

_She's clutching at me now with a hand on each elbow and looks up into my eyes through her own watery gaze. She rasps out, "Bella? Is that you?"_

"_Yes, it's me. Oh god, Esme, what's wrong?"_

_She slides her hands around my back and grabs me into a tight hug, letting out a shrieking cry. "Bella, Bella, Bella…!" She repeats my name as though it's a song for life._

"_I'm here Esme. What is it?" _

_She can't speak. For a long time, she can't speak. She cries openly into my chest, her head against my shoulder while she holds me. She begins to rock back and forth, taking me with her even though I'm still crouched above her. I'm in no rush to hear her speak. The warmth of her embrace, and even her tears, are a balm to my fractured soul. I begin to take mortal shape in her arms. _

_Finally, her crying quiets to soft sobs and she pulls back from me and gapes at me with a look of awe on her face. And something else. Relief. Joy, even._

"_What is it, Esme? Tell me. What's wrong?" _

_A smile breaks across her face, at first small but then wide, igniting a light underneath her pallor and bringing someone younger to the surface. Someone closer to the woman I remember from my childhood. She looks terribly sad, and happy all at the same time. She seems genuinely glad to see me and my heart swells. Some damaged piece of my psyche is shouting warnings not to trust this, not to hope, not to expect anything. But I am warmed by her smile in spite of it._

"_Bella?" she asks, quietly, her voice as shaky as she still appears._

"_Yes, Esme, what is it?"_

"_You're alive? Oh my god, you're alive!" she whispers so forcefully it's as though she's exclaimed at the top of her lungs. And then she's grabbed me once more into a hug, but this time with her natural strength returned to her and I'm no longer comforting her, but she's comforting me. _

_She rises with me in her arms, and holds me, repeating in my ear, "you're alive, you're alive, you're alive."_

_It's starting to sink in, what she's saying. She's shocked. She didn't know. She thought…_

"_I'm alive," I assure her. I can hardly speak she's hugging me so tightly. "You thought…?"_

"_Yes, yes," she says, into my ear. "They told us you were dead. We thought you were dead." And then she's sobbing again into my hair._

_The truth. I came here seeking the truth and I can't get my mind around it. As sure as I've always been about Edward, as much as I've worked to keep faith in him, I realize in this moment that I had ceased to hope. I had let myself believe I was abandoned. The pain I've been living with for months swells with this realization and breaks its dam. My knees buckle and I wail._

_Esme catches me on my way down. We are trading support and she immediately understands what's happening to me._

"_Oh, dear girl. We thought you were dead! My Bella. What's happened to you? What must you have been through? We've failed you again! I've failed you again!" I hear her words through my cries and feel her arms around me and I can feel the pain rushing with the force of a mighty river through me, out of me, until there's nothing but a small rivulet, a slow trickle of the pain. It happens so fast. The realization that she loves me, that Esme loves me, that they didn't abandon me, immediately expels the monstrous lie I've been living with for months._

"_I don't understand what happened," I say, to the universe who owes me an explanation. But it's Esme who hears me and pulls back enough to direct her tear ridden gaze on my own, her hands still on my arms._

"_I don't understand it either, Bella. It's awful. It's so awful. And I'm just so glad we were wrong! I can hardly believe it. Oh dear, is it really you?" She runs a hand down my long brown hair and tugs the end for good measure._

_I smile, somehow, despite myself. "It's really me. I was in an accident. I was in a coma. I tried to reach you but you all disappeared." By the time I've finished I'm not smiling anymore. I feel my mouth turn down and my lower lip begin to tremble. Tears well in my eyes. "You left me…"_

_Esme pulls me back into a tight embrace. "We could never… we would never…Bella, I'm so sorry. I'm so, so sorry! I don't know how you could believe that, but I know it must be my fault. I've been wrong, inexcusably wrong."_

_We're both quiet for a moment as she rocks me in her arms and comforts me. Most of me is reveling in the comfort of her words, in her embrace, but a piece of my brain is scrambling around for something else. As though she can hear the scraping in my skull, she breaks away from me suddenly and exclaims, "Edward! Oh, Bella, you must find Edward!"_

_At the sound of his name spoken out loud, I immediately shake off the last of the haze. He is everything. He is me. Where he exists, I exist, and hearing his name on our mother's tongue brings me wholly into the present._

"_Where is he?" I breathe._

"_He was just here this morning. He left only a few hours ago."_

_He was here? I just missed him? It seems too cruel to be true, but then there's so much I don't know about what's happened, what he believed._

"_Bella, you must go after him!" Esme sounds desperate. I'm desperate too, desperate to see him, desperate not to waste another minute without him. But I'm confused by her urgency._

"_Is something wrong with Edward? Where is he?"_

"_Bella, he's been told that you're dead. How could he be anything but wrong? We had to hospitalize him because he didn't believe you were gone….he was so sure that you couldn't be.., and we forced him to accept…oh god, I failed you both!" Esme is overcome and looks as though she can't go on._

_Edward hospitalized? We were both hospitalized, me with a broken body and he with a broken…what? Heart? Mind? He kept faith, though. My optimist. My believer. I need Esme to continue, to tell me what I need to know to find him._

"_Esme, tell me."_

"_He's been in so much pain. I can't bear it…" she trailed off, clearly experiencing a visceral reaction at the thought of her son's agony._

"_Please, tell me. Where is he?"_

_She nods and collects herself. "He wouldn't tell me where he was going. Bella, I'm worried about him…worried he might do something foolish. He's been lost without you. He said he was going back to California, but he wouldn't tell me his plan. He was vacant when he left. He mumbled something about needing to find you, and said he had a flight to catch in Seattle. I was so worried that I called Emmett as soon as he drove off, to make sure he takes care of Edward when he gets back to San Francisco. But Emmett hasn't heard from Edward."_

_Esme looks at me, wanting me to answer the questions we both know I can't answer. "Where else would Edward be staying? Who else would he go to if he's headed to California?"_

"_I'll go to him, I'll find him," I promise her, because, of course, I must._

_She nods and collects herself. "He may already be at the airport. He'll probably have caught his flight by the time you get there"_

_Then she looks in my eyes and she's pleading, "Please find him, Bella. Quickly. Please help him."_

_And I want nothing more or less out of life. She knows this. I don't need to tell her._

"_Where?"_

"_I don't know. I'm sorry, I don't know. All he said was California," she lets out another, lone sob. "It felt like he was saying goodbye!"_

_I pull her into one last hug. "I'll find him, Esme. I promise. I'll find him."_

"_Okay," is all she can say in return, overwhelmed with emotion again._

_I kiss her on the cheek and rub her back and turn to go._

"_Bella?" she calls before I get to the screen door._

"_Yes?"_

"_When you find him, come back to us?" She's asking, pleading again._

"_Of course."_

_I'm standing in the yard now, alone, stunned but with new purpose. I have a mission. There was no one who came to me in the hospital, no one who sought me. I still don't understand why, but at least I know there was a reason. At least I know I wasn't abandoned. I'm as desperate to find Edward as Esme seems to be for me to find him, but all of a sudden I am pulled by the need to do one last thing before I go. Pulled against reason, to a place that belongs to the past but that holds too much to be left there entirely._


	10. Chapter 10

**Disclaimer: Any Twilight characters that may appear in this story belong to Stephenie Meyer. The remainder is my original work. No reproduction is allowed without my written consent.**

**Chapter 10**

* * *

_The ground and air are dry for this time of year, and I can almost feel the chill of the hard soil beneath me through the armor of my indifference. I've spent months fantasizing about you, Bella. Writing to you, talking to you. I've realized that as far back as I can remember my thoughts debuted in conversation with you, unrehearsed. It turns out I know no other way of experiencing the world. Even now, my mind can't wrap itself around the silence on your end. _

_I've fantasized, but I've held memories at bay. I must have unconsciously understood that memories of you would level me in a way that fantasy could not. I knew I was going to visit this clearing before I left, that I had to seek you here before I chase you down into the next world. I planned it meticulously. Say goodbye to Mom at the doorstep, drive away, and then pull off onto the dirt track that runs into the pine nursery, hidden from the road. I had to first make sure Esme hadn't gone after me. I knew she would be worried. _

_When I'd waited what seemed like a safe interval, I left my car and plunged into the nursery by the route Esme showed me the very first time I came to this clearing. The narrow parting in the trees that existed then is all but swallowed by swollen branches, and I had to fight off cloying needles with my limbs as I clawed my way through to the clearing. I've brought an avalanche lily and a thistle in a jar that I plan to leave here for you, a homage to the things you made me feel when I brought you here as a child, and the fantasy I had of meeting you here while I was in the hospital. Incredibly maudlin, I know. You'd tease me for that. _

_It's a humorless gesture, though, and I've lost the ability to laugh, even at myself. As soon as I set foot in the clearing, the memories I've successfully staved off for months started to break over me in relentless waves. This place is booby trapped with sense memories of you. The smell of pine, the crunch of needles underfoot, the air that's only tinged with sun for a few hours a day. This is where I consoled you when you grieved for Charlie. This is where you held my hand when I'd fought with Emmett over nothing worthwhile. This is where I brought you when we'd grown into teenagers and I couldn't explain the urge I had to be alone with you. You've told me since how desperately you had wanted me to kiss you here, in the quiet of the forest. I've spent years regretting my cowardice then. Oh, Bella, I would never be that coward again. If I could find you now I might bind my lips to yours forever. I might never let you utter another word that was not an exclamation of pleasure into my mouth._

_The memories crushed me, and I've been lying here in agony, crying uncontrollably, for hours I think. I'm not sure how long I've been here, but I know I'm in danger of losing myself. I'm in danger of giving up. I need to pull myself together and get back to California. I'll go straight to the last place on Earth you knew and join you over the cliff. I'm coming._

_The world is murky through swollen eyes as I finally pull myself off the ground in the center of the clearing. It must be very late afternoon, as I no longer see anything more than the palest blue above me and an eerie gray-green around me. It's the color I saw in a halo around you in my fantasy. Without you here, it's a deathly hue. _

_I rub the tears and snot from my face with the back of my forearm, but I'm still crying and the gesture is like that of a single windshield wiper that can't keep ahead of the rain. I lumber to the edge of the clearing and will myself to take the last step back into the trees. Why is this so much harder than any other minute without you? Why do I feel as though I'm saying goodbye? The loss I've been living with for months suddenly grips me and a furious cry rips from my chest. "Bella! Oh, god, Bella!" _

_I'm on my knees again, now in the low brush at the edge of the clearing. I need to stand. I need to move. I need to be anywhere but here. _

_I struggle weakly to my feet, will myself not to glance back over my shoulder, and propel myself into the forest, back in the direction of my car. I must not look back. I must keep moving forward. _

_As I walk I begin to hear things. Rodents, most likely. They're the only animals that can comfortably move around in this dense overgrowth of pines. I'm not afraid, but the atmosphere has changed and I've gone from feeling utterly alone to surrounded by creatures who can only pity the man making his way toward his own end. I begin to hear echoes in this space that's too close to possibly allow such an effect. I'm going mad, finally. Madder, I suppose. I went around the bend a long time ago, didn't I? I'm distracted and have to stop. As crazy as I know myself to be, I need to understand what I'm hearing._

_I still, a broken twig of a man, swallowed whole by the boughs of the enormous pine trees surrounding me. I listen. It's quiet as soon as I stop moving and it occurs to me I've been listening to the rustle of my own clothes. I can barely turn in the small space where I'm standing so I look up, catching a tiny glimpse of the pale sky, to orient myself. I'm about to start moving again and I hear it. The distant crack of wood, the nervous flutter of wings as if a bird's been scared out of low brush. I notice for the first time the buzz of insects at my ear, the call of a crow overhead. I hear my own breath coming rapidly. I feel a magnetic pull backward, back toward the whispers of movement coming from the clearing._

_Madman, I tell myself. Perhaps I'm simply afraid to die. You used to say I was chicken-shit. You said it fondly, never cruelly. You were braver than I in so many ways, but not when it came to us. I know you relied on my strength of conviction where we were concerned. I'll never have to feel shame about that, at least. But you were right that I'm a coward in other respects. I've been so set on this path to find you – a path I know to be toward my own destruction – that I haven't questioned for a second that I'd have the courage to follow you into death. Maybe I'm afraid. Maybe that's why I'm rooted here, listening like a madman to the cackling forest as though it's calling to me._

_And then it does call. _

_Sweet, sweet, Bella. _

_Your voice. _

_It's honey and gravel and calling to me. I'm instantly high, giddy from the sound. For a moment believing that I haven't pulled the sound out of thin air. For a moment, believing._

"_Edward!" _

_It's coming from behind me, and I'm frozen. I've reconciled myself to the loss of my sanity already, but for some reason I'm desperate not to be undone by my own mind. I cling to my sense of purpose, the one that's driving me out of the pine nursery toward my car. I need to ignore that most beautiful sound in all of the world because it's most surely in my head, don't I?_

"_Edward, where are you?"_

_In an instant I'm plowing through pine trees, needles and the sharp edge of branches taking swipes at my clothes and my face as I go. I'm panting and all thoughts of my original purpose, all pretense at sanity are gone. I need to get to that voice. Some tiny part of me is braced for the pain of disappointment awaiting me in the vacant clearing but I will myself to ignore it. You own me. Even in death, you own me._

_I break into the clearing and can barely hear above the pounding of my heart. It's empty and it turns out I've made it to the edge of the cliff after all. The sight of the empty space is a precipice and I'm teetering there, just one thought short of freefall into the abyss. _

_And then I hear it. A quiet sob._

_I look in the direction of the sound, and there, at the far side of the clearing, kneeling in low grass with your head in your hands, shrouded under the shade of a tall evergreen…_

"_Bella?" I call, quietly. What trick of the mind has created this vision? In what fantasy of mine would you be on your knees, in pain? How sick must I be?_

_The vision of you has heard me and looks up. Your jaw drops. I lose my breath when your eyes meet mine. You see me. You've always seen me._

_Before I can breathe past the shock of your beauty, you're scrambling to your feet and coming at me, hurtling toward me. _

"_Edward! Edward!" you cry as you launch yourself at me. I'm so stunned that I barely have time to react, to catch you as you fly into my chest. As deluded as I am, I can't bear the thought of letting this gorgeous vision of you fall. I grasp you in my arms and pull you tight when the force of your small, warm body hits mine._

"_Oh, Bella. My Bella!" I groan into your neck as I lift you into the air. "Sweet, sweet vision."_

_You're crying, and I'm crying. I understand why I'm crying, but I should be able to imagine you without tears. I want you to be happy, even in my fantasies. Especially in my fantasies._

"_Edward, Edward, I've missed you so much!" I feel your lips on my forehead, your thumb running along my hairline down to my jaw, your tears and mine across my face. It's so real. I can feel the heat of your breath and the tiniest scrape of your nail as you run your forefinger along my jaw and under my chin to bring my eyes to meet yours. "Edward, don't cry," you say, and plant a tender kiss on my eyelid. You kiss down my cheek, catching my tears as you go, and then stop at the corner of my mouth._

_I groan and turn, unwilling to examine your hesitance. If I've spun you whole out of sheer desire, I don't want to wait. I've dreamed you so I can taste you one more time. _

_I capture first your top lip, and then your bottom between mine and run my tongue over each. You're soft and sweet, the flavor of vanilla, just as I recall, and I am a man possessed. I harden and feel the dead embers ignite – not smolder but rage, instantly. The control I kept throughout my last fantasy of you in this place is gone. I'm kissing you savagely, my lips devouring yours, my erection straining against your belly. _

_I've got you off the ground and I need some traction. I don't want to loosen my hold on you for a fraction of a second, so I'm walking you into the clearing, as though I could get us up against a wall, or a tree. It's impossible though – there's no appropriate surface here but the ground and so I hold you to me roughly as I drop to my knees, your legs straddling my waist. Only when I have you supine do I pull away fractionally, my hands cradling the back of your neck and the curve of your ass. I want to be inside you so badly that I can't organize my thoughts. _

"_Edward," you say, breathlessly, grabbing the fabric of my t-shirt at my chest to pull my lips back to yours. "Edward, I need you." _

_Tears are still streaming down your face. The ache I feel at the sight of your anguish rivals the ache in my groin, and for a split second I'm wrestling the monster in me that wants to ignore your tears and take you. "Edward, don't stop. Please, don't stop now."_

_But you're crying and this shouldn't be, not in my fantasy. And I should have more control. This time there's no halo of green about you. All I see is you. Your intelligent, forlorn eyes, your ruby lips already swollen from my assault, your flushed cheeks, pink from your blush, from the scrape of my stubbly jaw, and from the tears that continue to flow._

"_Bella, why are you crying? I dream that you're happy. I don't understand." It's all I can do to get the words out with your fingers crawling through my hair. Your touch on my scalp turns a spindle there, unwinding threads of desire through the center of my body to my cock. I groan and kiss at the tears sliding down the corner of your mouth._

"_Bella, please, please stop crying…"_

_Your voice is steady in return, despite the tears. "I can't Edward, I can't. I'm so happy and sad all at once…" and then you're kissing me again, one hand still pulling at my hair while the other searches for my skin under the hem of my shirt. "Touch me, Edward."_

_I need eight arms to touch you in all the ways and all the places I want to right now, but I reluctantly remove my hand from your ass, not wanting to let go of the back of your head, and press the palm of my free hand against the back of yours at my waist._

"_I will, sweetheart, I will," I say into your lips. "Just tell me why you're sad, so I can make it better." If I'm going to entertain one last dream of us together, I can't have it tinged with your sadness. _

"_Oh, Edward, not now…" and you straddle my hip with your thighs and rub your heat against me, desperate for friction._

"_There's only now, Bella," I reason with you, as if there's reason to fantasy._

"_No, Edward, no!" you cry, and I'm bewildered by the passion in your voice. All of a sudden the tears are coming faster and you've pulled away from me slightly, shaking your head back and forth. "Please don't say that, Edward. Please, I can't bear it!"_

_I capture your face in my hands to still you, leaning most of my weight on one elbow, half on top of you, half at your side. I need to understand your sadness, your words, even if they're only the protestations of my own mind. I mentally clear the fog I'm in and peer into your eyes. You are so much more beautiful than any fantasy, and all of a sudden I'm lost. This is a fantasy, isn't it? I am dreaming? _

_But the reality of you has always been better than any dream and the woman I'm holding, who's gazing at me through wet and matted lashes, is the most beautiful sight I've ever seen. I don't believe my mind could create a vision this perfect, but I can't possibly…._

"_Edward," you say, softly, caressing my cheek in your palm and smoothing my brow with the other. "Edward, I'm here. I'm not going anywhere."_

_You're no longer fighting me but comforting me. My dream girl, my wish._

"_Edward, this is real. I'm alive." _

_How do you know what I'm thinking? Every fiber of my being wants to believe you, wants to have faith, but I've been struggling with my sanity in the name of our love for months and I'm terrified. Your palm at my forehead is rubbing out the turmoil etched there._

"_Edward, talk to me. I'm sorry I rushed you. We can talk," and you gently brush your lips against mine, then pull back to look me in the eye again. "I promise you we have time. I'm not going anywhere."_

_The tenderness of your touch and the plea in your voice are like smelling salts to my wilted soul._

_It's you! It's really you! _

_I don't understand how, but I'm holding you, really holding you._

"_Bella, I don't understand? I thought…"_

"_I know, Edward, I know. But I wasn't. I was hurt but I'm ok now. I thought you'd abandoned me, but I'm ok now, because you didn't." You speak quickly, as though you don't want to linger on your own pain for my sake, and in that moment all doubt is lifted. _

_This is my Bella. Truly, it is you!_

_And then I remember the vow I made to bind my lips to yours should I ever find you again. Suddenly, I'm kissing you wildly, through broken words, as the reality of what you must have been through dawns on me through layers of relief, joy, and desire. "Bella...oh…no… I'm… Bella…so…sorry…so….god….how?…Bella…"_

_You're kissing me fervently, too, and manage to get out the words we need in this moment. "Later…Edward…later…now…I need...," and you drop a hand to my erection pressed into your side, running your fingers along the outline of my cock under the denim. Desire explodes under your touch._

_I understand now why this is so different from my fantasies, my dreams of you. I understand why my thoughts are like dust motes flying before the broom. It's you. It's because of you. Even in disbelief, what I feel in the presence of you is more than I can control. My desire and my need to make you smile, inextricably tied to the flesh and bone Bella._

_You're rubbing the heat of your sex into my hipbone again and stroking my painfully hard cock while you fumble to undo my jeans buttons with your free hand. "Stop thinking," you command in between kisses. _

_Fuck, you know me so well. _

_My hand brushes yours aside and makes quick work of the button fly. I'm frantically pulling my jeans off with one hand while I lay your head on the bed of needles under us. I need to set my other hand free to get to your skin. _

_Removing your clothes and mine long ago became a jigsaw puzzle we could put together blind. After months without you – worse, months spent reckoning with the impossibility of your death – it's not that I've forgotten where the pieces go, but I'm newly in awe of the simple elegance of their fit. The easy way we use our feet to shuffle out of our own shoes and socks, and the skill you've mastered – freeing my legs and feet from my pants with the use of your own bare feet. The feel of your flesh as I make my way up your stomach to just under your breasts. Your patience with the brief moment I take to wrap my fingers around your rib cage before I slide them under you to unclasp your bra. The way you arch your back as I do and put your hardened nipples at the mercy of my mouth. _

_I'm naked from the waist down and my erection is pressed into your thigh, reaching for you as greedily as my hands do. You discard your loosened bra and pull your t-shirt over your head while I take one of your nipples between my lips and over my tongue. A low moan from you tells me I'm where you need me. I cup your other breast in my hand and run soft passes with my thumb over the nipple, while I tease the one in my mouth with my teeth and the tickle of my tongue. The taste of you threatens to pull me into conscious contemplation of what has happened and what we nearly lost – did lose. But you're wriggling under me to get some friction again and arch your back further, begging me to press my hand deeper into your flesh. _

_You reach down between us to clasp a reverent hand around my cock. You're stroking me slowly, but your heart rate and speeding breath belie the even pace of your hand. It's all I can do to split my attention from the sensation of your hand on me and the pleasure growing thick in my gut. _

_I massage one breast with my hand and the other with my mouth. You're aroused and I'm still fighting with the realization that your groan into my neck is not an echo of the past or the delusion of a fevered mind. It's the live exhale of your pleasure. The vibration of your voice into my skin, and the light touch of your finger drawing figures on the back of the hand I have pressed into your breast, connect you to me in ways too subtle for fantasy. I'm hard as a rock in your hand, burning for you as I always have, and even yet feel capable of losing control. _

_I lift off you slightly and you whimper an objection, but I need to get into your pants. Without entirely removing my mouth or my hand from your breasts, I get one of my knees between your legs and reach down to unbutton your jeans with my free hand. You reluctantly let go of my cock, which stands between us like the demanding prick that he is. I lose all pretense at elegance of movement. I have never needed to touch you so badly in my life. Your breath catches as I shove my hand into the front of your jeans and grab at your sex. I cup you over your panties, needing to feel all of you in my hand. I press the tip of my middle finger hard into you, so that I'm almost inside you through the thin satin between us. _

"_Fuuucckk, Edward," you moan as you buck underneath me and grab the hair at the back of my head. You pull my mouth off your breast and I think you're going to bring me up to your lips, but instead you slide your fingers through my hair to the top of my head, and hook three fingers of your other hand into my mouth, over my bottom teeth. Then you simultaneously push and pull, dragging me down your body. The roughness of your fingers on my head and in my mouth excites me and while I descend to the smooth skin just above your pantywaist I push my finger hard up into you, so that the flimsy satin is forced to follow. I'm dying to feel you without that barrier but I am so fucking greedy at this moment that I can't take my hand off you long enough to get rid of your panties. _

_I get another full-throated moan from you and you writhe a little on my finger and around my hand, which is palming you, stroking you. My thumb is massaging wide circles around your clit, still through your panties._

"_Edward, fuck….please…" _

_I pinch your nipple with the hand still left there, and then rub the pad of my thumb over it while I pull my finger out of you and rip your panties down your legs. You squirm out of them quickly and press your breast into my hand, eager for the sensation to continue. I'm throbbing and desperate to get your hands back on my cock, to get inside you, but too grabby to take care of all things at once. _

_I put my lips to your bellybutton and run my tongue around the small circle of it, feeling you shiver underneath me. Then I slowly slide my middle finger over your clit and down further, back and forth through your hot, wet skin just over the top of your entrance. I put pressure on the entrance each time but don't penetrate, instead moving up and down to tease your clit. You get wetter with each pass and you're now clawing at my shoulder and grabbing madly at my hair. _

_I drag my lips and open mouth down your belly and then drop to kiss and lick your inner thigh, just grazing the edge of your labia while I continue to stroke you. _

"_Edward! Oh, god, please…!" You beg as though I'm torturing you, when you know I'm worshipping you. You must know how I've suffered without you. You must know that as badly as I need to taste you, to feel you around me, I can't risk missing a moment of this._

"_I will, Bella," I whisper into you, breathing across your sensitive skin. You're red and engorged with blood flowing to the site of your desire, and I'm going to sink my teeth into you if I don't keep mastery of myself. The smell of you makes my tongue thick in my mouth and I reach out with it to tickle the sensitive skin around your entrance before I lick up, parting you as I make my way to your clit. Your hips buck just as I press the flat of my tongue to your clit, and two of my fingers that were lingering softly against you press back into you, curling up to the nerve endings there._

_You wail and stop moving, your muscles tightening around my fingers. I love the way your body climbs. I push you and pull you up and up and up, but your own muscles flex and release and join me in the work. You know how to pull pleasure from your own body, and you bring me with you. _

_I begin to lick slow circles around your clit, hard and soft, aggressive and teasing, steady, and then stop, and then steady again, all while I slide my fingers back and forth, hard, against the soft mound of flesh inside you. Your hips are now rocking with me and your thighs are squeezing against my shoulders. You chant my name in an uneven string of curse words and affirmations. _

_I can feel your body rise through layers of pleasure, and I know if I could see your face your brow would be knitted and your eyes shut tightly. I know how you roll your tongue around in your mouth as though you can taste your own climax. I could dance with the sweetness of your sex on my tongue all night, but I can tell you're getting close and I want to bring you there. I slow my ministrations just as I feel you beginning to shake. You gasp, grabbing a handful of hair on my head like it's nothing but sand. You pull hard, unconsciously, while you drive your hips up, so that I take almost your entire sex in my mouth and push one more finger in to press on that spot while you come hard around me._

_Your scream is incoherent and says everything I need to hear from you in this moment. It says you're alive. It says you can feel, that you feel me. It says that I've reclaimed your body and that I can still share this with you. I rise up from between your legs to watch you. You're gorgeous. Your eyes are shut and your head turned to the side, chin up, your mouth hanging open in an expression of aggravated ecstasy. Your arms now lie by your sides, fingers digging into the dirt while you ride out the last of your orgasm. I leave my fingers inside of you while your muscles continue to contract around them and put my free hand on your belly to soothe you and be there with you while you ease down from the heights._

_After you're still for a long moment, you place your soft, strong fingers over the hand that still rests on your sex and slowly pull me from you. Your eyes open slowly and you look down your body at me. You give me a wanton smile and even though I see through your eyes the dam you've built to hold back months of turmoil, I ignore it. I trust you to talk to me when you're ready. I need to be inside of you as badly as you need me there. _

_You're uncharacteristically silent, even your breath quiet and still, as I rise up from between your legs, running a hand along the back of one calf and catching you at the knee. You help me bend your knee toward your chest while your other leg wraps around my waist. I position myself at your entrance, keeping my eyes locked on yours. Our silence is reverent. I feel my chest swell with disbelief and gratitude that you're here, that we're together, that I haven't lost you. There aren't words, not even the demands of desire, to do justice to this moment with you. I trail a finger along the inside of your thigh and push up into your deliciously wet sex in case there was any doubt that you're ready. You maintain your silence, grasping your bottom lip between your teeth. I see a tear sliding down your cheek and know that my own face is wet. _

_I can't wait a second longer. I remove my finger and use that hand to guide the tip of my cock inside you. Your mouth drops open and your fingers dig into my biceps where you're grasping me. I am desperate to bury myself in you but I need to know you're ok. For a split second the reality of what must have happened to you flashes into my consciousness and the swell of joy in my chest turns like the edge of a knife. It's a searing pain. Are you hurt? Dear god, how badly were you hurt? I wince unknowingly and I see my concern reflected in your expression. But yours is concern for me, not pain. I see that. You don't utter a sound, but I see that._

_You slide one of your hands down my back and firmly plant it on my ass before you pull me closer with all your strength. As soon as I push deeper inside you the moment of worry is past. One stroke with you around me and a wave of sensation grips my balls and gut. My nerve endings sing, and as I pull out of you slowly and push back in, I feel the pleasure spreading in heat through my abdomen. My eyes have closed. There is nothing but the connection of our bodies. Your low moan as I stroke in and out of you again is the first sound you've made since you came._

_With the flimsiest grip on rational thought slipping, I get my arms under you and roll us so that you're on top of me. I need to get you off the cold, needle-covered ground. I force my eyes open in time to see you sinking deeper onto my cock, your delicious ass resting on my thighs as you sit straight up and throw your head back, your hands on your ankles behind you for balance. I bend my knees behind you for support and sit upright so that our bodies form a V. The air is cool, but I notice you're damp with sweat when I press my hand against your sternum and test the heartbeat in your chest._

_The forest is utterly still around us and while the sun has fallen well below the tree line, there's enough light to see the intricate lines on the skin of your lips, tiny curls of hair at your temple, and the few, dark freckles at your throat. Details drawn like notes in the margin to tell me this is my book. I am every bit as consumed by you as I have been through a lifetime, aching in my balls from the grip of your muscles around my cock._

_You are looking me in the eye now, and bend down to put your lips on mine. You deepen the kiss just as you start to rock up and then slide back down on my cock. The feeling is like nothing I've ever known. We've done this a million times, but I am never less than overwhelmed by the pleasure. Now, the sensation of your wet heat sliding around my throbbing erection is deliverance. I am the luckiest man on the planet and the orgasm just beginning to build with your steady strokes is the only thing that stops me from babbling to you about how much I've missed you and how desperately I love you. This would be over too fast if it weren't for how split my mind is between the physical pleasure and emotional overload._

_Your mouth is now lingering close to mine and you've brought your hands to my shoulders, your short nails digging into my biceps. I can see flecks of black in your dark irises as you rock for a long time slowly, but then faster. Finally, your eyes lose focus. I put a hand down in the dirt to get leverage to thrust from underneath you, matching your movements because I know soon you're going to be unable to control your own body. I am buried so deep inside you at this angle and you're moving as if to get even closer. I can feel your muscles contracting around my length and when I spread my legs your soft behind brushes my balls with each bounce. It's getting closer to dark in the clearing and there's almost nothing left but your live body connected to mine and the tension growing in my balls and belly. _

_We're both sweating in the chill air and you gasp as your movements begin to get frantic and erratic. I know I'm moments away from explosion and reach my free hand down between us to rub roughly at your clit. I feel your thighs begin to tremble. You buck on me and throw your head back, thrusting your chest out as you come undone. The feeling of your muscles pulsing around me and the sound of my name rolling around in your mouth like an ode to ecstasy sends me over the edge. My orgasm shuts down everything but the feeling of explosive pleasure that pushes out from my cock through my limbs._

_When I regain my senses I have my arms around you and my face is fast against your neck while we both ride out the high. I feel a small trickle of sweat running in the heat between my forehead and your skin. The skin at the small of your back where my hands are holding you is damp. Your breath and heartbeat are fast but I feel you steadying and centering in my arms. _

_One of your hands slides over my ear and cradles my jaw while the other is at the back of my neck, your fingers unconsciously caressing me in a way that they have for years. I feel awake. Alive, for the first time since…._

"_I love you, Bella." I'm surprised by the sob that escapes with these words._

"_Shhh, Edward, it's o.k." _

_And it is. I think it is._

* * *

**_A/N - _Sheesh, yes, this has been a long time coming. I'm so sorry to those of you I left hanging for months. I had no idea how hard it was going to be to write this and I didn't want to post more before bringing these two back together. It's just too melodramatic and sad and I figured I'd worn out everyone's patience.**

**So, the truth is that I'm not sure whether this is the end or not. It could end here. Anything further would simply serve to put your mind at ease further that this is a happy ending. You may have many questions about how Edward and his family could have been so misinformed and how it is that Bella never made contact with anyone else in here life. I tried to explain that through the letters, though they're not the best medium. The truth is, it's a fantasy and although I've worked hard in my own mind to imagine the string of events that would have had to happen to make such a thing possible, the details don't matter much. The first half of this story was written almost 13 years ago, and was very personal. It didn't have a happy ending. It always felt (and is) far too melodramatic and overwrought to share. But then I became a twifan and realized there is a place for overwrought love. And it became imperative to give this one a happy ending, so it became even more fantastic than it started. I'm one of the few who loved New Moon, because the reunion made it all worthwhile to me. So, this is my ode to New Moon. It gave me a chance to write the reunion from Edward's point of view, in a manner. Thanks to all of you who have been reading!**


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